Woodyanders Young runaway Donna (a sly and seductive portrayal by Jodie Foster in the role that enabled her to make the tricky transition from child actress to adult one) leaves her dull waitress job to join a traveling carnival. Although Donna proves to be a quick sturdy, she nonetheless still disrupts the friendship between smooth con man Patches (a solid and charismatic performance by Robbie Robertson) and antagonistic bozo Frankie (robustly played with trademark lip-smacking gusto by Gary Busey), who urges local yokels into dunking him into a water tank.Director Robert Kaylor vividly captures the grotesque appeal, seedy atmosphere, and underlying violence and danger of the carny scene as well as presents a real moving compassion towards society's oddballs and misfits. Foster, Busey, and Robertson all do sterling work in the lead roles; they receive sturdy support from Meg Foster as the sassy Gerta, Kenneth McMillan as huffy no-nonsense owner Heavy St. John, Bert Remsen as jolly strip show barker Delno Baptiste, Elisha Cook Jr. as loony old coot On-Your-Mark, Bill McKinney as sleazy mobster Marvin Dill, Tim Thomerson as fast-talking hustler Doubles, Woodrow Parfey as the crusty W.C. Hannon, and Craig Wasson as Donna's hot-tempered boyfriend Micky. While Thomas Baum's uneven, but still interesting script offers a nifty array of colorful idiosyncratic characters and astutely pegs the touching camaraderie amongst the carnies, it alas falters at the end by trying to wrap things up a bit too neatly at the conclusion. Harry Stradling Jr.'s sharp cinematography provides an appropriately garish look. Alex North's eerie and unnerving score hits the spooky spot. A rather flawed, but overall worthwhile film.

Matt James An unusual low-budget film about the carnival circuit and the people who run them.Knowing nothing about Carnies beyond them tending to be associated with hard work, light crookedness and putting local girls up the duff and then leaving town, I can't say the film really gripped me or helped me understand them better. More story and character development would have been a big help. I wanted particularly to know more about the backgrounds of the principle trio to understand what drove them and where they thought they were going, if anywhere.That said it's an entertaining film with a solid cast. If you like 70's era films this won't disappoint. I was unsure what to make of Donna (Jodie Foster). Her character seemed to be an odd mixture of conflicts and innocence (soon lost) wrapped around an ambition that would hurt those around her if allowed to go on. Fortunately her two mainstays Patch (Robbie Robertson) and Frankie (Gary Busey) are fairly worldly wise, particularly Patch who oversees the midway and pays off local officials to keep things uncomplicated.Donna tries her (very green) hand in the burlesque tent with predictably bad results, no thanks to Patch. She finally teams up with Gerta (Meg Foster), she of the startlingly pale irises, in the string-pull booth. It could have gone interesting places from there but it ended unsatisfactorily to me and the carnies were portrayed as rogues who were a little too likable. Frankie had his demons but he seemed, at core, a decent guy and his relationship with Donna had real promise that was overlooked.If you're a fan of the principle players or just think that an 18-year old Jodie would be very easy on the eye (as indeed she has always been) then it is worth a look.

karmacoupe I saw this in the theater in winter/spring on 1980 -- haven't seen it since (geez, 25 years!) until these showings on the Canadian movie station. a lot more risqué than i remembered it! it's sure captivating,engrossing, hypnotic, alluring, inviting. jodie's in her young hottie period, and robbie's the eye candy for the girls. he's sort of playing a sequel to The Last Waltz's "it's a god-damn impossible way of life." busey's fabulously enraged and possessed -- pre-wacko period. the music and soundtrack is superb. and GREAT casting. Fred Ward's a great surprise! never seen him give a bad performance.seems like the most real circus movie i've even. i remember these traveling ferris-wheel freak-show ball-toss circus from my childhood, and it looks exactly as i remember it. (also, Movie Connection! this real traveling midwestern circus is captured briefly in Festival Express, a documentary about a 1970 train trip across Canada with Janis Joplin as Jodie Foster, Rick Danko as Gary Busey, and Robbie Robertson in his other role as a band-leader! :-) i'm certainly not bothered by the "lack of a plot" or whatever people seem to complain about -- a lot of my favorite art is not plot driven. say, Catcher in The Rye, for another young runaway story.Pull a string! Enjoy the ride!

puss-2 If this didn't feature Gary Busey or Jodie Foster in it then this could easily be classed as an avant garde film. There is virtually no plot, just a cascade of freaks, fights and sex scenes. I'm not sure if it's any good - it seems unsure whether it wants to be arty or straight forward - but it's certainly interesting. Worth a look.